Cape officers got close to the action

Patrolman James B. Rogers of the Falmouth Police Department was heading back to the Cape after a long day Friday searching for an alleged terrorist and cop killer in Watertown.

SEAN TEEHAN

FALMOUTH – Patrolman James B. Rogers of the Falmouth Police Department was heading back to the Cape after a long day Friday searching for an alleged terrorist and cop killer in Watertown.

“They said we're going to go home, get some rest ... and start all over again tomorrow,” Rogers recalled about the orders they received at about 6 p.m., when the search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, then an at-large suspect in the deadly Boston Marathon bombings, eased for the day.

Then he heard talk over the radio: shots fired on Franklin Street.

Driving in separate cars, Rogers, his brother, Falmouth police Lt. Michael C. Rogers, and other members of the Upper Cape Regional Special Response Team pulled off the highway at the next exit and bounded back to the area they had just spent hours searching.

Throughout last week, dozens of police from the Upper Cape response team, which includes officers from Falmouth, Mashpee and the Barnstable County Sheriff's Office; the Cape Cod Regional Law Enforcement Council SWAT Team, which includes members of police departments from all Cape towns except Falmouth, Mashpee and Bourne; and the Martha's Vineyard Tactical Response Team worked details in the Boston area, guarding sites possibly vulnerable to an attack.

But after the two men suspected of carrying out the April 15 attacks killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier and brought mayhem to a residential street in Watertown with a violent shootout, all hands were on deck, and some Cape police found themselves closer to a terror suspect than they ever expected.

The Rogers brothers lost each other in traffic as they rushed back to Watertown, James Rogers said. He ended up on Birch Street, behind the house where Tsarnaev was hiding, bleeding, inside a boat. He began working with a northeast Massachusetts regional tactical team, guarding a fence about 70 feet from the boat.

Michael Rogers found his way in front of a Franklin Street house, about 40 feet from Tsarnaev, he said. The tension surpassed anything he has experienced in his 15 years on the force, as people worried the suspect might set fire to the boat, which could have held 44 gallons of gasoline.

Responders threw flash grenades, but to James Rogers' surprise, Tsarnaev did not budge amid the loud cracks of about seven of the disorienting devices, he said.“He didn't move or do anything,” he said.Tsarnaev was still lying flat inside the boat when the negotiators from the FBI entered the scene, James Rogers said.

Negotiators told a barely conscious Tsarnaev that he had fought valiantly, that they heard he was a good wrestler, anything to gain his cooperation, James Rogers, who heard them speaking with the suspect, said.Eventually, Tsarnaev began complying. He sat up and lifted his shirt to show he had no explosive devices attached to him.

“They were very professional,” Michael Rogers said.

Eventually, a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Transit Police SWAT team rushed Tsaranev.Dennis resident Darlene Squires beams with pride when she talks about hearing that her son-in-law, MBTA Patrolman Saro Thompson, placed the handcuffs on Tsarnaev. “He was there from the time it happened till the time it ended,” Squires said. “He's truly a hero to me.”

As the Rogers brothers sat in the Falmouth Police Department on Tuesday afternoon recounting the manhunt and final standoff, Michael Rogers said celebration of the arrest was short-lived among law enforcement there.

“It was for like 10 seconds, then silence,” he said, shaking his head. “This guy right here inflicted so much pain and so much terror on a city.”

The hours of searching through houses and yards in Watertown and checking trunks of passing motorists – with the ever-present possibility of a sudden, violent confrontation – took its toll, Michael Rogers said. When he saw the rear doors shut on the ambulance carrying Tsarnaev, he was spent.

Falmouth Police Chief Edward Dunne on Tuesday praised the efforts of the eight Falmouth officers who took shifts in Boston – taking time from their personal lives in some cases – as well as other officers from the Upper Cape regional team and the Cape Cod SWAT and Martha's Vineyard teams. Those in Watertown on Friday showed a great deal of professionalism when they drove back to the scene after hearing that shots were fired, he said.

“They were done; they could have just come home,” Dunne said. “But they turned around to come and assist in any way they could.”

Members of the public have showed more support of the police than usual, James Rogers said. When he was working a traffic detail Monday, one passing driver stopped his car, rolled down the window and shook his hand, driving away without saying a word.

The fear and relief was felt by police and civilians alike, James Rogers said.

“We've dealt with dangerous fugitives before,” he said. “But this definitely takes the cake in the level of anxiety on police officers and the public.”